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Fry ‘em dano

It appears that the newest fad in Government sanctioned revenge murders is using fatal injections. Mostly gone is all those nasty criminals going up in flames in the electric chair, or death row inmates slamming their head into a pipe while inhaling deeply in the gas chamber, just trying to die quicker. Lethal injections make murder much cleaner and less likely to spawn controversy. Controversy that could stop the death penalty.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I have a serious problem with the death penalty. More than 100 people on death row have been exonerated by new evidence — in some cases, by DNA testing, and this number is growing daily. How many innocent people have been executed before DNA could overturn a juries determination of guilt? I feel that if one person can be proven to be innocent before, or after they were executed, then the death penalty should be immediately stopped. This has already been proven.

January 31, 2000, Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on further executions in Illinois. Why? Because of the release of 13 death row inmates based on findings of innocence had encouraged him to impose the moratorium. Previously, Illinois had already executed 12 inmates, so out of 25 death row inmates facing execution 13 were found to be innocent!

I think there is beyond a reasonable doubt that this situation can occur anywhere else in the world where the death penalty is considered acceptable. But, we don’t have to assume this. Stories are constantly coming out about someone else being found innocent after spending years in prison or on death row.

So, who pays for those people executed when they were not guilty? Not the police, the prosecuting attorneys, or the juries who condemned them to death. Their death goes unpunished. I bet if the people involved with sending an innocent person to their death had to face the same consequences as anybody that murders innocent people, there would be alot less messy “mistakes”.

So maybe thats the answer … If the government is allowed to execute people, lets make them responsible for their actions… put prosecuting attorneys, and investigators in jail when it is found they convinced a jury of a defendant’s guilt when the defendant wasn’t guilty. Let them experience the same process of “justice” they are supposed to work for. This will never happen of course, so maybe a better solution would be to get rid of the death penalty until there is some process that absolutely proves a persons innocence or guilt.

Personally, I would rather know that a person that harmed me or my family was spending the rest of thier lives suffering in prison, knowing they will never be free again. Knowing they will die in prison many years later, rather than getting an easy way out of pain and suffering while the victim’s family agonizes for the rest of their lives.

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